T&T cyclists Nedd, James, D’Abreau get silver medal upgrade

Af­ter al­most a year of wait­ing on an up­grade for a per­for­mance that earned them a bronze medal in the team sprint at the 2025 Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Asun­cion, Paraguay, the trio of Je­lani Nedd, Dar­nell James, and Ryan D’Abreau fi­nal­ly got the up­grade that their per­for­mance de­served, to the sec­ond-place sil­ver medal on Monday (June 15) at a medal-up­grade cer­e­mo­ny at the Olympic House on Wood­ford Street, Port-of-Spain.

This was af­ter the even­tu­al win­ning team, Colom­bia, was dis­qual­i­fied af­ter fail­ing an an­ti-dop­ing test. That de­vel­op­ment meant that the sec­ond-place Mex­i­co was el­e­vat­ed to the first-place gold, and T&T’s 46.216 time in the fi­nal, which saw them hold off neigh­bour­ing Venezuela, earned them the sil­ver medal.

The Venezue­lans were al­so up­grad­ed to the bronze medal with their time of 47.307, which ini­tial­ly land­ed them in the fourth-place spot.

Yes­ter­day at the Olympic House, it was a cel­e­bra­tion more of the rid­ers’ de­ci­sion to do the right thing rather than the up­grade of the ti­tles. James, in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, said, “It’s a very proud mo­ment. We’ve been putting in the work; we’ve been do­ing what we’re sup­posed to do by stay­ing clean and do­ing the right thing. And, you know, the good­ness pays off. It’s just time, and it’s just a process.”

Nedd told the au­di­ence that his team did not have much time to pre­pare, but they still cap­tured the Un­der-23 men’s match sprint ti­tle at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Cou­va on May 18, shat­ter­ing the na­tion­al track record. “We didn’t have much time to pre­pare, team train­ing aside; this was years in the mak­ing, train­ing from youth de­vel­op­ers and tiny mites go­ing up. So the fact that all of us re­al­ly got to­geth­er and we still end­ed up third and got an up­grad­ed sec­ond, so yeah, I am proud of what we’ve achieved.”

Be­fore re­ceiv­ing their sil­ver medals, T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) pres­i­dent Di­ane Hen­der­son em­pha­sized that the ex­pe­ri­ence of­fered a valu­able les­son be­yond the mere pre­sen­ta­tion of the medals. As­sur­ing the au­di­ence that in sport, as in life, what we see is not al­ways the full pic­ture. ”What ap­pears on the podi­um, what glit­ters on the top of the dessert sheets, is not al­ways the truth of what ap­pears.”

As she shared some re­al-life ex­pe­ri­ences, Hen­der­son said, “There will be mo­ments in your ca­reer when the re­sult does not re­flect the ef­fort you gave or the stan­dards you were held to. In those mo­ments, I urge you not to be dis­cour­aged. Not to be tempt­ed to cut cor­ners be­cause oth­ers ap­peared to be ben­e­fit­ing from their turn.”

“What you wit­nessed at this meet­ing is pre­cise­ly the les­son taught to Je­sus. First, bear with in­tegri­ty, com­pete with pride, and trust the King’s word with all of you. Many of you will re­mem­ber, and for those who do not, know that our men’s 4×100-me­ter re­lay team com­pet­ed in the Bei­jing Olympic Games and ran a race wor­thy of the high­est ho­n­our. Yet it was not un­til nine years lat­er that the full truth of that per­for­mance was for­mal­ly ac­knowl­edged.”

“On the 5th of Ju­ly, 2022, an­oth­er five years lat­er, in a spe­cial cer­e­mo­ny held at the Olympic Mu­se­um in Lau­sanne, Switzer­land, that team was re­al­lo­cat­ed to gold, the medal that was right­ful­ly theirs. It was a mo­ment of pro­found vin­di­ca­tion, not on­ly for those ath­letes—Richard Thomp­son, Ke­ston Bled­man, Em­manuel Cal­len­der, Mark Burns, and Aaron Arm­strong—but al­so for Trinidad and To­ba­go and for the prin­ci­ple that clean sport must al­ways be pro­tect­ed.”

She not­ed fur­ther, “An­ti-dop­ing pro­to­cols are not a build­ing block; they are a promise. A promise to your com­peti­tors, to our coun­try, and to your­selves that what you achieve is gen­uine. We ask all our ath­letes, now and al­ways, to ho­n­our that com­mit­ment with­out ex­cep­tion, be­cause clean sports is not just about what the rules re­quire. It is about who you are when no one is watch­ing and what you want your lega­cy in this sport to mean.”

The trio is ex­pect­ed to be re­unit­ed when the team to rep­re­sent T&T at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games is cho­sen soon. The rid­ers will al­so warm up at the ‘Car­ni­val of Speed’ and ‘Speed Par­adise’ events, which will be held over the com­ing week­end at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va.